Results tagged “napster” from Anything But iPod

Best Buy to Purchase Napster

Music Services

Best Buy today agreed to pick up Napster for $2.65 per share or about $121m. What is interesting here is Best Buy has been using Rhapsody for their own branded music store going as far as requiring manufactures to change their packaging to include the “Best Buy Digital Music Store” branding. (The reason why Creative no longer sells at Best Buy is because they refused to change their packaging and get on board the BB music store.)

This news is a bit disappointing for me since I was never really a fan of Napster and currently subscribe to Rhapsody and Zune Marketplace. It’s not that Napster is a bad music service, it’s just Rhapsody has a better catalog and has the best recommendation engine in the game. But I guess the good news is you will still be able to use Rhapsody Subscription on most of the players sold at Best Buy, it’s just not going to be bundled. Also note that it has not been officially stated as to what will happen with the Rhapsody / Best Buy partnership, but I am assuming the obvious.

[Press Release via PaidContent]

Napster’s Entire 6 Million Track Catalogue Now DRM Free

Music Services

DRM
napster

Back at CES 2008 Napster announced plans to make their entire catalogue DRM free. Today it joins stores like Amazon and Zune who also offer a part of their library DRM free. The downloads will remain at the same price as before (99 cents per track and $9.99 per album) and will be offered in 256kbps MP3 with high resolution (1,000 x 1,000 pixel) album art. By contrast Zune Marketplace and Amazon offer 320kbps MP3s.

There is one part of this story that is really aggravating in that people who have purchased previously ala carte downloads that were DRMed will not be able to trade for unprotected versions of the music they paid for. Don’t blame Napster, this decision made by the record labels showing us one again they don’t care about their customer base. Once again the DRM customer is screwed. Please vote with your dollars and never purchase DRM content since its expatriation is inevitable.

[CNet | Napster PR]

abi Editor's Choice

SanDisk Sansa Clip

The Clip has a fantastic little form factor; cheap in build quality but very rugged. The interface is simple and relatively straight forward. The features on the clip are more or less average, mostly identical to the Sansa Express. However, what earns this player a spot in Editor’s Choice is the superb sound quality; you will not find another player at this size and price that can match it. Read the full review or go ahead and buy it.
Samsung P3

The Samsung P2 was a success and the P3 is a very welcome and substantial update. Samsung has paid close attention to users on P2 issues and made great strides in addressing and improving most of them. The best feature of the P3 is its native video support. Most content you thow at it will playback without conversion on the great looking screen. Stop by the Samsung P3 forums for more details or check out our indepth P3 review.
Microsoft Zune 120

Sure, many of us are not big fans of the walled garden, but there are a lot of great things going on with the Zune- sturdy hardware, ultra easy to use user interface, and a media player that is worthy of editor’s choice. The best part of the Zune is the constant firmware and software updates virtually giving you a new device at each major refresh. You can check out the latest Zune 120 & 16 review or stop by our Zune forums for the latest.
Cowon iAudio D2

The D2 is a fantastic sounding PMP with a very nice looking screen and a tone of features. One of the best features of the D2 is the SDHC slot allowing you to add another 32GB to this small wonder. The touch interface does not lend well to on the move operation, but it is not enough to keep it from being an editor’s choice. You can find usually find it at Amazon for the best price and before to check out the review.
Phonak Audéo PFE

Phonak Audéo PFE offer outstanding clarity and precision; natural, dynamic mids and treble, and decent bass for a single armature in-ear phone. They handle dense, complex music very well. The PFE work well with most acoustic and some electronic music genres, but bassheads might have to look at other alternatives. They're great for sports as well, since they fit very securely. Check out our review.